Week March 28

G'day,

It’s good to hear from you. The last week has been stressful but it was definitely rewarding at times. I did get a new companion and Elder Parkinson did, sadly, leave. My new companion, Elder Munyard from New Zealand was supposed to arrive on Saturday on the plane but the churches’ credit card stopped working and it ended up he had to take the 27 hour bus ride. He said in the process he didn't eat for like 48 hour. He slept very little on the bus. lol. I felt for him. He's only been out for 6 weeks and he's a recent convert but he seems good so far so I'm hopeful. This next week will most likely be very trying to say the least. I'll do my best though. As it turned out my old companion, Elder Parkinson left Sunday morning at 6:30am and Elder Munyard didn’t arrived until 6:30pm. During that time I had to stay with a priesthood leader. I spent the day with President Coggins, his wife and young baby. It was tiring but good. They're a great family.

For questions, we don’t really get referrals. We did get member referrals in Brisbane, sometimes, and Christmas DVD referrals, but not here. We have teaching appointments, of course, but not too many. We spend a good deal of time following up with people, tracting and visiting less active members. That’s one of the hard things about being here; finding constructive things to do and I guess, keep pressing forward. It’s tough, I'll be honest. We don’t have a mission leader but the members are amazing and if we ask them, they can generally make time to come out with us.

The weather has been amazing and it has been cooling down nicely. From now until October, I'm told, it will not rain at all and the sky will be completely clear and blue. It is supposed to get pretty cold as it gets into winter but we'll handle that as it comes. We won’t get to watch conference but we'll get a DVD a couple of weeks afterwards. We're very much in the bush but the Branch President is working on getting the Internet hooked in. We’ll see though…

Cheers! Love you and thanks for letting me know how you're doing. It’s good to hear from everyone. Talk to you next week.

Elder Hatch